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An autopsy expected to be performed Monday on two bodies found in a ditch outside a home on Purrysburg Road in Hardeeville could shed light on the deaths, according to Jasper County Coroner Martin Sauls.

The bodies of Desmond Brown, 25, of Hardeeville, and his girlfriend, Octavia Scott, 26, of Bluffton were found late Friday with gunshot wounds to their heads near a vehicle that crashed into a tree outside the home late Friday.

Authorities are treating the deaths as homicides but are waiting on autopsy results to explain more, including whether the couple died in the collision or were killed by the gunshot wounds.

A passerby discovered the bodies and reported the incident as a crash before discovering that the victims also had been shot.

Hardeeville Police Chief Richard Nagy has said footprints outside the vehicle matched the male victim's but that blood and other evidence inside the vehicle indicate that something also happened before the high-speed crash.

Attempts Sunday to reach Nagy for new details about the investigation were unsuccessful.

The autopsies will be performed at Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, Sauls said. The S.C. Law Enforcement Division is assisting in the investigation.

Anyone with information on the deaths of Brown and Scott is asked to contact Hardeeville Detective Sgt. Alexis Webber at 843-226-0923.